Thursday, February 12, 2015

My Life: Laundry and Food

First life category: Laundry

Laundry is a funny thing.  It has to be done, especially if you don't want to smell weird but it is so hard to accomplish.  It multiplies exponentially with every child.  It also doesn't matter how many clothes you or your children have, you always want the one thing that is dirty. Don't get me started on folding!  Why are there so many small-people clothes? Where do all those missing socks go?

Sometimes I gauge my life on how the laundry situation is going.  For example, if I stay on top of it and do a load every so often I feel on top of the world!  I feel like Wonder Mom!  There isn't a huge pile in the laundry room to be washed, no pile in the living room to be folded.  I feel like a well-adjusted, accomplished adult.  On the flip side, if I wait until it HAS to be done, I feel overwhelmed in ALL aspects of my life.  The laundry is bursting from hampers, no clean school uniforms for Nolan (it's okay, we wore the same uniform two days in a row), and the dreaded no clean towels has occurred.  At that point I just want to go buy new towels from Target and not do laundry ever again.  It's like some three headed beast that I'll never be able to tame, so why try?
And then I put on my big girl pants, do a marathon of washing, folding and putting away (for what seems like all weekend) and all is right with the world again.

You would think since I know how to conquer the evil laundry beast, I would be able to do a little every day.  But, as I type this, I am reminded of the load being washed, the two loads that are dry and waiting to be folded and the two loads that are folded in to nice piles but have yet to be put away.

Maybe next week :)

Second life category: Food

Food is another funny thing.  We all have to eat to survive, and a wide variety of food is always best for your health.  But heaven forbid you tell my children that.  If you ask them right now what they want to eat they will say:  pizza (frozen), carrots and ranch, macaroni and cheese or Chick-fil-A.  Makes me sound like I only feed my children the same four things for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So, I was super excited when Nolan asked for Ants on a Log.  It's that healthy snack with celery, peanut butter smeared on top and raisins placed up and down the celery stalk.  I started washing celery, smearing peanut butter and placing raisins perfectly on the snack...this process took a lot longer than expected.  When served, Mallory asks,"The celery is the log, the raisins are ants, but what is the peanut butter?"  Hmmmm....I told her it was sap, which then turned in to a whole conversation of what sap was.  I'm pretty sure the peanut butter is just there for the yummy factor and to keep the ants from falling off, but I wasn't sure a 4 year old would understand that explanation.  Sadly, after all this hard work they picked up the raisins, licked off the peanut and then ate the celery separately.  At that point I'm thinking, "Whatever, it all ends up in the same place."

Baked Ziti was a hit, especially if containing a heart-stopping amount of cheese.

Ghiradelli Triple Chocolate Brownies.  A college student suggested these to Greg while he was shopping, so Greg listened and bought them.  Pretty darn good if I do say so myself, and the kids enjoy them.  Who wouldn't?

Cookie Butter.  I new product of HEB.  I jar of heavenly deliciousness.  Very good on bread with bananas sliced on top.  A new fave for Nolan's lunches.

Slowly expanding their pallet is hard, especially since their taste buds seem to change from week to week, and they rarely like the same thing at the same time.  But we always have frozen pizza and mac and cheese to fall back on!